A BEHAVIORAL CHANGE MODEL TO ASSESS VACCINATION-INDUCED RELAXATION OF SOCIAL DISTANCING DURING AN EPIDEMIC

Abstract

The success of mass vaccination campaigns may be jeopardized by human risky behaviors. For example, high level of vaccination coverage may induce early relaxation of social distancing. In this paper, we focus on the mutual influence between the decline in prevalence, due to the rise in the overall immunization coverage, and the consequent decrease in the compliance to social distancing measures. We consider an epidemic model where both the vaccination rate and the disease transmission rate are influenced by human behavior, which in turn depends on the current and past information about the spread of the disease. We highlight the impact of the information-related parameters on the transient and asymptotic behavior of the system that is on the early stage of the epidemic and its final outcome. Among the main results, we evidence that sustained oscillations may be triggered by the behavioral memory in the prevalence-dependent vaccination rate. However, the relaxation of social distancing may induce a switch from a cyclic regime to damped oscillations.